I know we have some Dope crafters selling their wares on Etsy. As it happens I’ve been an arts n’ crafty person for a long time. Recently, folks have asked me to make a few things for a few bucks and I’m thinking, huh - I’ve got bunches o’ things already made, lots of materials to make more, I enjoy this, I need to get excess stuff out of my house (how many afghans does one household need, right?), and maybe I can get a few bucks for some of this.
I’ve been looking around on Etsy for a bit on my own, but I know we have some experienced Etsy sellers on the board so I thought I’d ask for advice. These are the questions to start:
What do you think is the most important thing to know about Etsy?
I do a number of different things - should my “store” just sell one, or what do you think about my featuring a couple different things? (Weaving and leather working for example)
Not an Etsy seller, but a veteran online shopper including Etsy…
Good pictures, multiple pictures, front, back, sides, if it’s wearable a picture of it on a person or mannequin. As high res as possible so people can see detail. List all materials.
I know Biggirl is an Etsy seller, as is congodwarf. If they don’t show up in this thread, check out their “buy from me!” posts in the marketplace forum; you may be able to get some ideas from their stores. Biggirl has a blog about her marketing and jewelry-making efforts, as well; I think that’s linked to her Etsy store?
You might take a look at Ravelry; it’s only knitting and crocheting but there are some ads for Etsy stores and some threads about the issues as I recall. Or post your question there. (And if you aren’t a Raveler yet you ought to join.)
Pictures matter. Size, quality, and quantity. When taking pictures of your wares, use the same plain surface against the same background, with lighting that accentuates colors. This gives a polished look to your stuff and makes you seem professional. I would hate going through pics and seeing stuff that was clearly laid out on someone’s bedroom floor, with random junk in the background. Even if you know it’s just a poor college kid selling stuff, it’s nice pretending you’re actually dealing with a professional business.
If you don’t provide dimensions in the ad, then use something like your hand or a quarter or a ruler in the photograph so that people can have something to compare to.
Also, if you’re selling clothes, do not be the model. Use a mannequin. It’s just more professional. (Also, no one likes buying clothes that have been worn…even if just for the five seconds it took to take the picture).
Tags and descriptions are also hugely important. This is how people will be finding your stuff, so if you use made-up/creative words (which I used to do), no one is going to find you. If you make something that’s zebra-print, put “zebra-print” in the item name. If it’s a kind of vase, find out exactly what kind of vase it is (bunch, bud, ivy bowl, etc.) and use that in the name or the description.
Go with everything you have. People may not like the first item they pull up from your store, but they may like something else…even if they weren’t seeking out that kind of item originally. Also, each time you update your gallery, your store gets “bumped” to the top. Which means you’re more accessible to people who are just “window shopping” or browsing.
This is a hard one and ultimately why I stopped selling. I couldn’t figure it out. Sometimes I felt like I was overcharging and other times I felt like I was going too cheap. You need to look at what other people in your artistic genre are charging. Don’t undercut your competition too much because people will doubt the quality of your work. But unless you think you’re all that and a bowl of grits, I wouldn’t go too far above the average either. Initially you may way to start on the low end and as you get customers, gradually raise the prices.
Priority, USPS. I’d usually add a standard $5 for shipping and handling. Nice round figure that was usually close enough to the true cost.
One thing that helped me start off was getting friends and family to go through my etsy store if they wanted stuff from me. So I never had 0 sales. I once did a special order for my mother and made her run it through the store so not only would I get “credit” for it, but prospective customers could see the enormity of the work I did for her. No one knew she was my mother (and yes, she did pay the list price…so it was all good :)).
With gift-giving season coming, this really is the time to start cracking. Good luck!
Ergh. It’s hard to get attention on Etsy. To get any attention (meaning, any sales), you shop needs to have constant activity. Every time you list an item, it flashes across the bottom of the main Etsy screen for everyone looking at that screen at that moment. These little flashes usually generate 10-20 views for me. So the more often you list things, the more free attention you get.
Other than that and what has been said before, all I have to add is to be careful about selling items intended for children. There are lots of consumer safety rules that are constantly changing, being suspended, etc., and for whatever reason I’m unable to find clear and current descriptions of what the rules are.
I haven’t had much luck on Etsy but it’s most likely because the stuff I make is kinda particular. I don’t know how many people go there specifically looking for a sparkly lanyard for their dog training clicker but I suspect not many.
Descriptions that actually tell what the item is are nice and surprisingly enough, not everyone uses them. Cutesy descriptions are fine, as long as you can still tell what the item is.
I have bought many gifts from Etsy and I can say with certainty that the only people I have bought from and will buy from in the future are the ones with good descriptions and very good pictures.
Thanks, Broomstick. This OP is timely for me as I was considering the same thing. For all of your Etsy haters out there, do you have any other recommendations? Do other yarn crafters on Ravelry actually buy someone else’s yarn creations? Doesn’t seem like a big market share to me?
I came to post exactly, word for word what Gleena did.
Check your spelling.
Individual is good, pretentious, wordy descriptions that don’t actually describe- not good.
Don’t tag your stuff with irrelevant descriptors (see the “This is not Steampunk” section of Regretsy).
Try to avoid making anything that looks like a penis.
Occasionally being the kind of stuff that gets featured on Regretsy means more sales, but it’s generally a bad idea. Additionally, if your stuff gets featured on Regretsy, don’t take it personally and enjoy the extra traffic that your shop gets as a result.
As fun as it is to have an “artsy” background for your items (I’m looking at you, barn wood!), having something that isn’t distracting the viewer from the item is ideal. Like other folks have said, mannequins are great for clothes items (nobody wants to imagine your bits rubbing up against their clothes), and scale/dimensions are essential.
There are a ton of folk selling on Etsy, including resellers. Don’t be surprised if the reseller traffic bumps listings quickly. Etsy doesn’t make a living for 80%+ of the users on it, but it is a good way to offload one’s crafts/art with the right exposure.
Etsy had something called “Etsy Alchemy”: this was a section that’s dedicated to requests for items by buyers. They range from simple and well-thought-out to bizarre (NSFW) and impractical, and Etsy sellers can “bid” on the jobs. Since I had just discovered now that they discontinued it February 1st, I’m leaving this part in, but figured you might be amused by Regretsy’s WTF Alchemy Request section.
Though I think Etsy is a neat place to view some really cool stuff, I have yet to buy anything on there due to having too much stuff as it is. Look around and see what’s selling (and not selling) in your genre and act accordingly; the worst scenario for you selling on there is that nothing gets sold and you lose a few dollars to list your items.
Read the TOS carefully, as it’ll give you all the handy information for listing rules, etc.
Lastly, there are “groups” within Etsy for different interests. Maybe you can find one that’ll be useful for helping you sell your stuff and/or just getting to know other crafters in your medium.
One other possibility is trading instead of selling. Not as great, I know, but if you could get rid of an afghan for something different that you like and would use, well, that’s something.
I know more about Etsy than I would like, but I don’t think I could add any useful advice to what has already been posted.
I think you might be surprised, although on the other hand, if what you want to sell is knit or crocheted objects, and you are picky about being paid with in real money, I’m not sure how much of a market there is.
What I know is this–I’m active in at least one group on Ravelry that has a designated thread for etsy shops and the like. And I’ve seen other groups with similar threads. It’s that balance between we want to support our friends who are trying to make money spinning, dyeing, making stitch markers . . . but we want most of their posts to be about crafting stuff, or fun stuff.
So when SusieWeasley posts a picture of the clever scarf she just knit, with her own hand-dyed yarn, you’ve got a place to look and see what she’s got for sale, or a starting place to contact her and see if she’s interested in custom orders.
And I know there are groups that revolve around the idea that I’ll knit you a pair of socks, if you pay me in really expensive sock yarn or lots of not so expensive yarn.
I do wonder sometimes with some of the swappers, if they realize that postage costs money.
But my advice, as someone who isn’t involved in etsy, but knows casually (and electronically) a number of people who are, is that one should expect to put lots of time and energy and professionalism in, and not expect to get a lot of cash back out.
I know this isn’t relevant to the OP, but I make afghans that are donated to veterans’ homes and nursing homes through my mother’s AARP group. They also support Project Linus, with smaller afghans for babies and children. I love to knit and crochet, but we’ve got at least a dozen afghans, some of which never get out of the closet. So I get to try new patterns, keep my hands busy, and know that the stuff I’m making will be appreciated.
I don’t think I could make afghans to sell anyway. I’d have to charge more than most people would pay to feel like it was worth my time. Even at a dollar an hour, few people would be willing to meet my price. I’ve seen afghans for sale in local consignment craft shops, and near as I can figure, they just double the cost of the yarn. Fine for them, but there’s no way I could do that.
So I give them away instead. Somewhere in my brain, that makes sense…
I realize there’s not a lot of money in Etsy - all I have to do is think about my costs and time then look at the prices for items similar to what I make to figure that out. However, I do make nice things (if I do say so myself), I’ve got some fine things that have never been used that I’d rather see go to someone who’ll appreciate them rather than the trash bin, and if I can get a few dollars out of it so much the better. If my hobbies can learn to support themselves that would be even better.
There are lots, so I’m going to give general advice, instead… There’s quite a lot of competition in most categories, so your pictures need to be clear, and your listings should be tagged and titled carefully to ensure that the important keywords that describe your item are upfront. (Etsy has recently changed the way it does searches, to come in line the rest of the internet; it’s causing a bit of internal upset.)
If you’re going to ship outside the US (and as someone based outside the US, I’d encourage you to consider it!), check for common variant spellings and terminology for your products (jewelry/jewellery, for example, or various clothing terms that differ between the UK/Canada/Australia and the US). You should also try as far as possible to include measurements of things, in both metric and imperial, since nominal sizes vary so much.
I think if you can create a coherence in your shop - taking photos against the same background, in the same style, for instance - then different types of products might not matter. If you’re selling wildly different things - vintage car parts and, say, watercolours - then you might want to consider splitting them up, but if you can still describe what your shop does in a way that doesn’t sound odd, I’d keep it to one shop with clearly labelled shop sections. (It’s easier to manage one shop than several.)
I work out my material costs, my labour costs, my packaging costs (though I price my shipping separately, based on the cost the post office charge me), add these together, then calculate the % profit I want to make and add that on. (I have a spreadsheet that does it all for me.) I don’t always stick to what the spreadsheet tells me - some of my chainmaille pieces take a long time, and make the piece unaffordable if I do a strict calculation of my labour costs - but I try to make sure I’m paying myself enough to make it worthwhile.
In the interests of keeping shipping costs low, I tend to ship things in a ziplock bag to protect the item, wrapped in bubblewrap for extra protection, then in an envelope with a note and a business card. If I’m asked to giftwrap things, I will, of course.
Good luck - give me a shout on here or on Etsy (my shop’s linked in my profile) if I can help with anything specific!
